Medical imaging technologies permit viewing of internal body structures and anatomy without invasive surgical procedures. Ultrasound imaging, in particular, allows a physician to visualize internal details of soft tissue, organs, and the like by propagating sonic waves through a body and detecting sonic waves as they reflect off various internal structures. While current ultrasound techniques can provide useful diagnostic and treatment information, data for ultrasound imaging is generally captured with a handheld probe that is pressed against a body surface until suitable contact forces are achieved for imaging.
For example, in a medical imaging context, an ultrasound technician grasps an ultrasound probe and places the probe in contact with a patient's skin. A transducer on the probe emits ultrasonic acoustic waves into the patient and measures reflections of the waves. These measurements may be converted into images for visualization of internal anatomical structures. In general, the harder an ultrasound probe is pressed into the skin, the better the waves penetrate the skin's surface and the higher the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of resultant images. However, for soft areas of the body, varying the contact force of the ultrasound probe also tends to deform the internal structure of the patient's tissue. As a result, images of the same patient's tissue may show different deformations of the internal structures due to varying contact forces used when acquiring the images. This may lead to difficulties in medical diagnosis, such as where a tumor in one ultrasound image appears to be larger than the same tumor shown in an earlier-acquired image. It may be difficult or impossible to determine whether the tumor has grown, or if the tumor was merely deformed differently by ultrasound probe when the images were acquired.
Thus, as a significant disadvantage, the use of handheld probes may require a substantial exercise of skill and dexterity from a user to achieve consistent results, and typically involves an application of force that deforms imaged structures in a quantitatively uncharacterized manner. There remains a need for ultrasound imaging techniques that permit characterization and/or control of deformation forces acting upon an imaging subject.